1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a media player. More specifically, the present invention relates to a media player for playing a content acquired from a media server.
2. Background Information
In a conventional media player, a desired content is played by acquiring content information from a media server and retrieving the desired content based on the content information. The media server stores mystery drama, drama series, robot anime, and numerous other contents, for example.
With the conventional media player, digital contents are stored in a plurality of files that are set up by a user. Thus, the user has to manage the contents, which requires time and labor and is troublesome. In particular, managing the contents is troublesome if the number of the contents increases.
With another conventional media player, attribute information imparted to numerous contents stored in a media server is acquired (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-226663, for example). Furthermore, a content cluster is generated in advance. Then, a user selects a single content cluster and specifies a desired content from a content display screen of the content cluster.
In the conventional media player, clustering is performed based on the attribute information. However, viewing tendencies according to a user's preference are not reflected in the clustering. Thus, labor and time are required to retrieve the desired content that matches the user's preference.
There is also a technique in which a content that matches a user's preference is retrieved based on a play count or other playback history that is stored in the media server. However, the user's preference is not reflected when a certain media player is connected to a different media server.
Furthermore, even when favorite settings are registered in the media player, the favorite settings apply only to a specific content in a specific media server, and are not applicable when the same content is present in another media server.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved disk device. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.